There are a wide variety of hair styling tools available in the market, including passive tools like combs, brushes, and clips, and active tools such as dryers and irons. Often these are used together. For example, it is common to use a comb or brush to gather a portion of hair, and then apply a curling iron to the gathered hair to curl the hair. It is well known that care must be exercised when using a curling iron because a typical curling iron heats to a temperature high enough to cause burn damage on skin. Still, despite being careful, people can still inadvertently burn themselves, or the person on whom they are using the tools.
In order to address the risk of causing a burn when using a hair iron, a number of devices have been developed to act as a shield or barrier between the person and the hot iron. These devices generally take one of three forms; they are held by the non-iron hand, they are affixed to the hair, or they are attached to the iron. If the barrier device is hand held, then the other hand has to hold the iron, leaving the operator to carefully gather hair with the iron. If the barrier is placed in the hair, then the person or the stylist can use both hands, but the barrier doesn't move with the stylist's hands. If the barrier is attached to the iron, then the maneuverability of the iron is limited.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.